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> That whole discourse assumes things about actualized humanity that cannot be taken as granted. Who's to say that earning a simple living, caring for a family

> That whole discourse assumes things about actualized humanity that cannot be taken as granted. Who's to say that earning a simple living, caring for a family well, and being virtuous isn't perfect in itself? Who's to say that seeking pleasure and avoiding pain isn't a form of perfection? Who's to say that the human perfection isn't a distraction from the commands of a perfect deity? I'd say that the high-low-middle-mass divide is universal, but the goals that a given high culture aims for are different from civilization to civilization. This includes West European (including New England) versus Celtic (more or less including the South, descended mostly from the Anglo-Scottish Borderers and the West Country). In the particular areas you're asking about, though, I see contradictions. Being virtuous doesn't have much of a history of being compatible with seeking pleasure and avoiding pain; but being virtuous is a form of human perfection, in fact the one that Aristotle would endorse most readily, and I fail to see how following God becomes easier if you're less able to follow Him. As for earning a simple living, well, look at the website you're on and its long history of destroying the ability to earn them... On the second point, though, I feel misrepresented. I explicitly said that "it's not just mass culture that the Internet makes available" -- although if you don't share the goals of a given high culture, there's no point in participating it. What does a Celtic high culture look like? Such a culture definitely existed in the Middle Ages, especially in Ireland, but it's been on ice for centuries... In music, an orchestra can just plain produce sounds that a guy with a guitar can't. There's also more of a filtering effect, which tends to weed out junk... but bigger and/or more formal music don't always mean better music. Music theory can become a burden, and the pentatonic scale is extremely expressive for something that has half the notes of twelve-tone scales; the Irish session is a different sort of thing from a Western quartet or band, with a different set of objectives. And music is something it's good to participate in, which is something in the guy with guitar's favor. Still, whatever a Celtic (or Quaker? or who knows what else) high culture might look like, there's not much participation in it in the US countryside, certainly not in any organized and visible form (although a lot of cultural activity of all sorts is on the Web these days). I feel like Western high culture leaves a few things out, but I'd rather be around someone else's culture than around cultural passivity -- although Western culture has a horrible case of the middlebrows here in the US. (Has it always? I wouldn't rule it out.) But if you want to specifically say that life isn't better in the mega-cities: I like urban living, especially walking to work. Of course, that gets challenging and expensive even in the mega-cities; the US needs more walkable areas, more narrow streets, and more trains, subways, and commuter rail. Rents low enough to raise families in the cities wouldn't hurt, either...

humanrebar 10y ago
> In the particular areas you're asking about, though, I see contradictions. I was listing various philosophical ideals, not optimizing humanity myself. > I'd rather be around someone else's culture than around cultural passivity You say that, but much (most?) cultural optimization has a religious component. The countryside in America is very culturally active, especially on Sunday mornings. And the "cultural ideal" of Protestants necessarily requires accessibility and even imperfection. Taken to an extreme, but still an American example, there are the Amish. Their cultural ideal is, more or less, rural simplicity. To the extent that they need to iterate or collectively think about their culture, they do. They just don't need patronage to achieve their more straightforward cultural goals. So to circle back to my original point, can we say they are uncultured? Or lacking or failing at "high culture"? I don't think that's accurate or fair. At least not objectively.

humanrebar 10y ago

> In the particular areas you're asking about, though, I see contradictions. I was listing various philosophical ideals, not optimizing humanity myself. > I'd rather be around someone else's culture than around cultural passivity You say that, but much (most?) cultural optimization has a religious component. The countryside in America is very culturally active, especially on Sunday mornings. And the "cultural ideal" of Protestants necessarily requires accessibility and even imperfection. Taken to an extreme, but still an American example, there are the Amish. Their cultural ideal is, more or less, rural simplicity. To the extent that they need to iterate or collectively think about their culture, they do. They just don't need patronage to achieve their more straightforward cultural goals. So to circle back to my original point, can we say they are uncultured? Or lacking or failing at "high culture"? I don't think that's accurate or fair. At least not objectively.